Nov. 17, 1997 -- Some of this week's stories
Ethanol use may raise some toxins: study
While the use of ethanol as an automobile fuel additive improves air quality by
reducing hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide
emissions, it also increases the release of certain
other pollutants, according to research by the
Environmental Research Division's Jeff Gaffney.
A recent field study in Albuquerque, N.M., published this month in
Environmental Science & Technology, showed that use of ethanol
fuels leads to increased levels of toxins called
aldehydes and peroxyacyl nitrates (PAN).
Aldehydes are much more reactive in the atmosphere than the alcohols they are
made from. They react with other chemicals in
urban air to set off chemical reactions leading to PAN.
Argonne scientists have found that once created, PAN can last for many days in the air
if the conditions especially temperature are right. When it's cold, its lifetime is longer.
PAN is highly toxic to plants and is a powerful eye irritant. It has been measured in
many areas of the world, indicating that it can be carried by winds throughout the globe.
"Although these pollutants are not
currently regulated," said Gaffney, "their potential
health and environmental effects should be
considered in determining the impact of alternative fuels
on air quality."
Albuquerque was chosen as a field study site because it is currently required by federal
regulations to use ethanol-gasoline fuel blends
and to ban wood-burning in order to maintain air quality during the winter months. More than
99 percent of the vehicles in the area use blended fuels containing 10 percent alcohol in the
winter. Blended fuel use declines substantially during the summer.
Atmospheric concentrations of ozone, oxides of nitrogen, carbon monoxide, PAN,
aldehydes and organic acids were measured in the summer of 1993, before the use of ethanol
fuels, and in the winters of 1994 and 1995, when
10 percent ethanol fuel was in use.
"I am not against alternative fuels,"
Gaffney said. " I am for understanding all the
problems and for creating engineering solutions to them."
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North Gate to close
Argonne-East employees and visitors will not be able to enter the site through the
North Gate entrance from Saturday, Nov. 15,
through Wednesday, Nov. 19, due to road repairs. East Gate will be open 24 hours
throughout the project. Work will begin Nov. 15
with repaving from the Argonne Information Center Driveway through the guard station,
then west on Outer Circle Drive to 94th Street. Some resurfacing work may be started
on Northgate Road. The North Gate will be closed, but visitors will be able to enter
the Argonne Information Center.
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Holiday giving gets under way at ANL-W
Argonne-West's Christmas for Families Program, which "adopts" several families who
have special needs for the holiday season, will be
held Nov. 10 - Dec. 12.
This is Argonne-West's seventh year of participation in the program. The goal is to adopt
as many families as last year or more. Last year Argonne-West adopted 12 families with a total
of 40 children. Argonne-West's donations totaled $7,398.
Around Dec. 1, a Christmas tree in the Laboratory and Office Building lobby will display
an ornament for each child Argonne-West adopts. Each ornament will have information about
the child's clothing sizes and needs. Employees
are encouraged to take an ornament from the tree
and purchase a gift for that child. The gift,
with ornament attached, should be brought
unwrapped to Shelley Wray's office in Building 710.
Large, colorful Christmas cards have been placed with each area representative. These
cards are designed to take the place of the expense
of buying individual Christmas cards for co-workers
and let employees instead donate the money that would have been spent for co-workers' cards
to the Christmas For Families Program.
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Energy expert Lovins
to speak at Nov. 19
special colloquium
Amory B. Lovins, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, will speak at a
Director's Special Colloquium on Wednesday, Nov. 19,
at 10 a.m. in the Advanced Photon Source Conference Center, Building 402.
Lovins helped found and directs research at the Rocky Mountain Institute, a
14-year-old nonprofit resource policy center in
Old Snowmass, Colorado. He is principal technical consultant to its subsidiary, E Source, a
source of technical information on advanced
electric efficiency.
A 1993 MacArthur fellow, Lovins has received many prizes and honorary degrees.
He has written 22 books and hundreds of papers.
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MCS's Lori Freitag named
outstanding young U.S. scientist
President Clinton has named Argonne Computer Scientist Lori Freitag (MCS) to receive
the second annual Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers.
Freitag is one of 60 to receive the award, the highest honor bestowed by the United
States government on outstanding scientists and
engineers in the first five years of their
professional careers. The awards were presented in a
White House ceremony on Nov. 3.
The Presidential Awards were established by President Clinton in February 1996, and
are intended to help meet the administration's
goals of producing the finest scientists and
engineers for the 21st Century and maintaining
U.S. leadership across the frontiers of scientific
research. The awards recognize young scholars, their research contributions, their promise
and their commitment to broader societal goals.
"These gifted young professionals
exemplify the best of our science and technology
community and will help set the scientific pace
for the U.S. and the world in the years ahead,"
the president said. "Their passion for
discovery and their determination to explore new
scientific frontiers will drive this nation forward
and build a better America for the twenty-first century."
Ten government agencies join together annually to nominate promising scientists
and engineers for the awards. Those selected
receive up to $500,000 over a five-year period to
further their research and broadly advance science
for important government missions.
The supporting federal agencies are the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce,
Defense, Energy, Health and Human Services,
Transportation, and Veterans Affairs, the
Environmental Protection Agency, the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration and the
National Science Foundation.
"Dr. Frietag is a pioneer in the design of techniques for visualizing data sets in
interactive virtual reality environments," said
Rick Stevens, Mathematics and Computer Science Division director. He adds, "Her
innovative work is helping to reduce harmful
chemical emissions from commercial boilers."
Freitag's research focuses on the real-time simulation and analysis of pollution
control systems for commercial boilers and
incinerators. This combines her research interests
in the design of a general-purpose, interactive visualization and analysis tool called SciVis
for the CAVE Automated Virtual Environment, and the use of "unstructured adaptive and
hierarchical mesh techniques" and parallel
processing for computers to reduce the required simulation time.
These techniques reduce from hours to seconds the time needed to solve complex
3-D applications on parallel computers and provide almost immediate feedback to
scientists and engineers developing prototypes and analysis tools.
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Sen. Kempthorne praises Charles Till
in Congressional Record
Senator Dirk Kempthorne (R-Idaho) paid tribute to
Argonne Associate Laboratory Director Charles Till with
an entry in the Nov. 6 Congressional Record.
Till, Argonne's longest-serving ALD, has
announced he will retire at the end of 1997.
Kempthorne described Till as "one of our nation's
great leaders in science, my constituent and my friend."
"At the end of this year, Dr. Till will
conclude more than three decades of outstanding accomplishment at Argonne National
Laboratory," Kempthorne said. "Dr. Till's
leadership, his vision, and his good humor will be
sorely missed."
The Idaho senator continued with a brief biographical sketch and a list of Till's
early accomplishments, but called the Integral
Fast Reactor (IFR) "his greatest contribution,
to both his discipline and to the world.
"This inspired source of electrical power has the capability to achieve incredible
efficiency in fuel use, while significantly lessening problems associated with reactor
safety," Kempthorne said. "In 1986, the IFR
showed that it can protect itself from overheating
and meltdown.
"Unfortunately, this program was canceled just two short years before the proof of
concept," he said. I assure my colleagues
someday our nation will regret and reverse this
shortsighted decision. But complete or not, the
concept and the work done to prove it remain genius and a great contribution to the world."
Click here to read the full text of the Congressional Record entry.
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Materials Collaboratory receives
$270,000 grant from Sun, GTS
The DOE 2000 Materials MicroChar-acterization Collaboratory (MMC) in
which Argonne is playing a lead role has received a research support grant of approximately
$270,000 in hardware and software from Sun Microsystems Computer Company and
Graham Technology Solutions (GTS).
The MMC project is working to develop an on-line "virtual laboratory" linking some
of the nation's best experts and microscopes at Argonne-East, Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National
Laboratory, the National Institute of Standards and
Technology, and the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana.
It will bring together every major materials characterization instrument and
technology at the five research laboratories. "It's not
just running a microscope over the Internet,"
said Nestor Zaluzec (MSD). "We'll be merging
the technology and expertise at each lab."
The grant from Sun and GTS will provide each of the principle members of the
MMC with state-of-the-art Sun Sparc Ultra II-1300 Workstations as well as other equipment
including video cameras, tape drives and digitizers.
This hardware, along with the latest software from Graham Technology, will be used
to establish base-line systems for server computers in the collaboratory.
These systems will facilitate the operation of electron microscopy and microanalysis
instruments currently on line within the MMC. The systems will also provide testbeds
for incorporating future instrumentation such as X-ray and neutron beam lines.
For more information on the project, visit its home page on the World Wide Web at
http://tpm.amc.anl.gov/mmc.
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Discover Award entries due by Dec. 5 ...
The Industrial Technology Development Center (ITD) is coordinating this year's
entries to the Discover magazine's "Discover Awards" competition.
Entries are due to ITD Friday, Dec. 5. ITD will pay the $50 entry fee.
The awards have been given since 1990 to acknowledge superior creativity and
ingenuity in technological innovation. Award categories are automotive and
transportation, aviation and aerospace, computer
hardware and electronics, computer software,
environment, sight, sound and emerging technology/editors' choice (for technologies that
do not fit within the other categories or are too new to be categorized). Five finalists are
selected in each category, and one winner is selected. DOE laboratories have been
named winners or finalists for 13 Discover Awards.
Each year one award nominee is selected to receive a $100,000 grant to continue
research on the nominated innovation. In 1997 the
grant was awarded to a researcher from Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Entry kits are available from division offices or from ITD. Call ext. 2-7694, or send e-mail
to weso@anl.gov.
... and R&D 100 summaries due Dec. 10
The first deadline in the entry process for the 1998 R&D 100 Awards competition
is Wednesday, Dec. 10, when technology summaries are due to the Industrial
Technology Development Center (ITD). Following a
review of the summaries by ITD, complete entries will be due on Jan 12, 1998.
As in previous years, ITD will coordinate submission of the final entries and
pay entry fees.
The R&D 100 Awards honor the best 100 technological innovations of the year.
Argonne won its first award in 1964, and to date has won a total of 67 of these
prestigious awards.
Entry kits are available from division offices or ITD. Call ext. 2-7694, or send
e-mail to weso@anl.gov.
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TIAA-CREF's new funds
not offered through
ANL retirement plans
TIAA-CREF's new family of mutual funds, now being advertised, are not available for
retirement plan contributions.
The funds are intended for individuals investing after-tax monies.
For more information on these funds, call TIAA-CREF at 1-800-223-1200.
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Seminar to focus on Alzheimer's Disease
A seminar on "Understanding Alzheimer's Disease" will be held at Argonne-East's
Building 200 Auditorium on Tuesday, Nov. 25, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Neurobiologist Elliott Mufson of Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center,
and Daniel Kuhn, educational director of the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center, will present
the seminar. Topics will include symptoms, diagnosis, treatment and causes; emotional,
social and financial consequences; impact on individuals and families, and helpful
resources for family members who provide care.
The seminar is sponsored by Argonne's Preventive Health and Wellness and
Employee Assistance programs.
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Timecards needed
by Nov. 23 due to
Thanksgiving holiday
Employees at both Argonne sites who complete their work weeks on Friday, Nov.
21 must hand-deliver their timecards to the Payroll Dept. by 6 p.m. on that day
before leaving the laboratory for the weekend
Timecards for employees who work the weekend should be hand-delivered to Payroll
by noon on Monday, Nov. 24.
Timecards received after these deadline dates are not guaranteed payment on Dec.
5, as payroll processing time for Nov. 23 timecards is extremely short due to
the Thanksgiving holiday.
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W-2 mailing depends
on accuracy of
pay stub information
To avoid W-2 errors and delivery delays, employees should check the accuracy of
the name, address and social security number that appears on their check stubs.
Corrections should be sent to the Payroll Department as soon as possible, but no
later than Dec. 10, to avoid W-2 errors and
delivery delays. A division Human Resources
representative should also be notified of any corrections.
1997 W-2 forms and Earnings Summaries will be sent by mail to employees' home
addresses in January 1998.
Employees may also contact a representative to review the information Human Resources
has on file about them. Representatives' names and telephone numbers can be found on page 6-6
of the Argonne telephone directory.
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CIGNA to raise rates
for life insurance
On Jan. 1, 1998, CIGNA will increase the premiums for supplemental life insurance
coverage due to increased claim costs.
The new premium rates shown below are monthly rates for each $1,000 in coverage.
For more information, call ext. 2-2991 (Argonne East) or ext. 3-7227 (Argonne-West).
| Coverage at one times annual earnings, including accidental death and dismemberment coverage: |
| Age | Current rate | New rate |
| Under 30 | $ 0.09 | $0.10 |
| 30-34 | 0.11 | 0.12 |
| 35-39 | 0.12 | 0.13 |
| 40-44 | 0.19 | 0.21 |
| 45-49 | 0.33 | 0.37 |
| 50-54 | 0.52 | 0.58 |
| 55-59 | 0.73 | 0.81 |
| 60-64 | 1.07 | 1.19 |
| 65-69 | 1.55 | 1.73 |
| 70-74 | 3.16 | 3.53 |
Coverage at two to five times annual
earnings,
including accidental death and
dismemberment coverage: |
| Age | Current rate | New rate
|
| Under 30 | $0.05 | $0.06 |
| 30-34 | 0.07 | 0.08 |
| 35-39 | 0.08 | 0.09 |
| 40-44 | 0.14 | 0.16 |
| 45-49 | 0.29 | 0.32 |
| 50-54 | 0.47 | 0.52 |
| 55-59 | 0.69 | 0.77 |
| 60-64 | 1.03 | 1.15 |
| 65-69 | 1.51 | 1.69 |
| 70-74 | 3.12 | 3.48 |
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Seminar to focus
on 'Great Work'
A free satellite seminar on "Creating Organizations That Support Great
Work" will be held on Wednesday, Nov. 19,
from noon to 3 p.m. in Argonne-East's Building 201, Room 325.
All Argonne employees whose schedules permit are invited to attend the
seminar, which is sponsored by DOE.
The presentation will be hosted by Margaret Wheatley, author of "Leadership
and the New Science." Discussion will focus
on creating and leading organizations that inspire people to contribute far beyond
current levels. For more information, call ext. 2-2151 or ext. 2-3503.
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Some to receive Argonne News on Monday
due to mail delivery schedule changes
Due to recent changes in on-site mail delivery,
Argonne News will be delivered to some Argonne-East employees on
Friday and some on Monday. Delivery to Argonne-West will be unaffected.
The full text of each issue, including seminars and classified ads, will
continue to appear on the Argonne News World
Wide Web site (http://www.anl.gov/OPA/local/anlnews.html) by mid-morning Friday.
Each issue is also available in "PDF" (Adobe
Acrobat) format.
The newsletter arrives from the printer on Friday morning, too late for Friday
delivery to about half of Argonne-East's buildings under the new once-per-day mail
service schedule (see the Oct. 27 issue).
Getting the newsletter to the mailroom early enough for Friday delivery to all
employees would require changing the newsletter's deadlines from the current 5 p.m. Monday
to Friday, decreasing the timeliness of the news stories and seminar listings.
In the future, copies of Argonne News will be made available midday Friday at
the Office of Public Affairs in Building 201 and in the Building 213 Cafeteria lobby.
Holiday changes delivery
To confuse things just a bit more, the Dec. 1 issue of
Argonne News will be delivered to all employees on Monday, Dec.
1, due to the Thanksgiving holiday.
Deadlines will not change for either the Dec. 1 or Nov. 24 issues.
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